14 Best New Technologies For Greener Homes

The keys to lowering consumption lie in a house's systems. These 14 new technologies, selected as Popular Mechanics Smart Home Green Design Award winners, create more efficient buildings, and more educated inhabitants.

The Tightwad Toilet

(Photograph by Nick Ferrari)

Toilet technology is a little like limbo—how low can you flow? The bar now sits at 1.28 gallons per flush. But Niagara's Stealth toilet sips only 0.8 gallons per flush thanks to a dual trap system that uses an air-transfer valve to pressurize the trapway, requiring less water to get something that early, primitive low-flow toilets lacked: "nice, complete rim cleaning," says Niagara's Paul Kwiat. Pressurized air replaces water in the trap as the tank fills. As the fixture flushes, the air travels up into the tank to displace the water in a tiny torrent to the bowl.

Get in on the Graywater

(Photograph by Karl Juengel/Studio D)

Most graywater draining from a sink or shower can be reused, with a little scrubbing, as garden irrigation. Few systems accomplish this task as simply as the one from US HydroTech, which pumps graywater through layers of filtration media to clear the water of soap and debris without chemical treatments. Developer Ed Bertain claims the system can handle up to 69.3 gallons per person, per day. Combine it with a collection tank, which can also be set up to catch rainwater.

The Reel Deal

(Photograph by Karl Juengel/Studio D)

Dual gears store energy the way a flywheel does in the blades of Fiskars' new Momentum mower, which devours debris that would jam a typical reel. The blades also stay sharper—revolving and stationary blades often collide on each turn, but these work like scissors, passing each other at 0.003 inches. Clever blade-spool design lets the mower flush-cut edges typically trampled beneath the wheels.

Sycamore Syringe

(Photograph by Karl Juengel/Studio D)

The Deep Drip 1-inch-diameter stake delivers water and fertilizer where they're needed: to tree roots, via a perforated hollow spike hammered 2 feet into the soil surface. A study by Cal State–Fresno's Center for Irrigation Technology found the stake to be more effective than surface water at saturating the root zone while reducing runoff and soil erosion.

Greener Cleaner

(Photograph by Karl Juengel/Studio D)

Made using nontoxic ingredients in a secret Manhattan lab, Green Depot's home-brewed cleaners reduce ecological impact as well as elbow grease. The recipe for the window cleaner eschews ammonia and alcohol in favor of "completely biodegradable surfactants," and the tub and tile cleaner works its fume-free magic through the power of a low-pH organic salt.

Petrified OSB

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"Oriented-strand board is just such a gorgeous product," TorZo's Chris Coduto says, "but if you want to rout an edge in it for a countertop, it tends to splinter." TorZo's solution is to place the structural panels in a heated vacuum, "polymerizing" the material so that it's firmer than a tropical hardwood. The result, named Orient, comes in four hues and can be shaped into OSB countertops, cabinet fronts, wainscoting or flooring. Installers fasten it with a two-part Corian adhesive (or just wood glue), then seal it with a clear coat. This process takes a basic building product and redefines its purpose.

Super Caulk

(Photograph by Nick Ferrari)

This spray-foam latex seals gaps too big for caulk to fill. Installers use a gun rigged to a mixing machine to blast Energy Complete into framing transitions, such as where plates and joists meet. And while caulk loses its hold under pressure changes, latex permits a bit of building movement—enabling it to withstand the big bad wolf of blower-door tests. Plus, it installs faster than "a guy with just a little tube," Owens Corning's Karel Czanderna says.

LED Upgrade

(Photograph by Karl Juengel/Studio D)

Power-tool flashlights, not always the crown jewel of the combo kit, can get an efficiency boost with Milwaukee's Upgrade to LED. Switching the bulbs triples the run time on most 9.6-volt to 28-volt tools, and the 50,000-hour LED has 250 times the incandescent's life span.

Wonder Window

(Photograph by Karl Juengel/Studio D)

Solera's opaque exterior panels contain nanogel polymers, weightless beads filled with air, that form a lattice through which no heat flows. As a skyscraper's curtain wall or a privacy wall in a house, the panes' R-17 to R-20 insulation—on par with a wall's—"dramatically reduces the heating and cooling load of a glass building," Solera's Avi Bar says.

Cool, Dark Roof

(Photograph by Marko Metzinger/Studio D)

New Solaris shingles from CertainTeed match the 40 percent reflection rate of a light-colored roof, but look like a dark one. The difference is in the titanium dioxide. The reflec­tive coating encases each granule; spot-coating, the norm, leaves a white sheen. "We've been selling roofs on curb appeal for 20 years, and people heard us—nobody wants white," the company's Lucas Hamilton says.

Salvage Scavengers

(Photograph by Karl Juengel/Studio D)

The main challenge of using second-hand building materials? Navigating the salvage yards to find what you need. Kansas City's PlanetReuse acts as your scrap agent, sourcing anything from ex-ocean-boardwalk lumber to brick from an abandoned factory. The matchmakers pair materials requests with new online listings in an operation so streamlined that the firm can often price salvaged items for less than an equivalent new material. Good thing—they don't mill it like they used to.

Twists on Solar

Clever ways to catch the sun emerge at the solar decathlon, a biannual contest in which college students design and build a solar-powered home. three details from the 2009 homes get extra credit for creativity.

Solar Louvers

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

The Ragin' Cajuns' BeauSoleil home has a transitional breezeway, or dogtrot, capped by a complex skylight. Polycarbonate panels sandwich the skylight, which houses flat-plate solar thermal collectors and aluminum fins that function like stationary louvers on exterior shutters. Fins shade the porch from the sun as solar thermal collectors threaded through the metal provide domestic hot water.

Reflective Green Roofing

Penn State University

On top of Penn State's Natural Fusion home, cylindrical photovoltaics combine with a green roof. The tube-shaped "panels," made by Solyndra, take advantage of reflective roofing by collecting solar energy from 360 degrees. Green roofs reduce a building's rainwater runoff and lighten its cooling loads, but the Nittany Lions realized that plants could also bounce sunlight back into the panels—fusing technology and nature to create a new building-design technique.

Smart Shade

University of Minnesota

The photovoltaic-clad roof gable on the Golden Gophers' Icon house extends to shelter its eastern porch beneath a translucent solar array. Silicon film on both sides of the bifacial panels captures sunlight from above and reflected light from below. An example of the design category known as building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs), this capitalizes on the pleasant, efficient shading effects of a porch awning by putting it to work generating power.